The first aim of this thesis is to present a comprehensive toponymic listing and analysis for six parishes of Western Strathearn, and this is done in Part One where approximately 2500 place-names are considered. The medieval parishes of BQR, COM, TEX, MUT, MZX and MXZ form a continuous, largely upland, area, topographically distinct from the Strathearn parishes to the east, and with the exception of Innerpeffray (part of MXZ, see esp. Part Two, Appendix 1b) somewhat less affected, in the 12c to 14c at least, by inward migration of Anglo-Norman and other non-Gaelic groups or individuals. Thus we might expect this western area to be the most conservative part of an earldom that Cynthia Neville has characterised as conservative and insular as late as 13c when compared to other major Scottish earldoms and lordships (Neville 1983, eg vol i, 156, Neville 2000, 76). The core lands of the more easterly medieval parish of FOW were subjected to the same comprehensive toponymic analysis. Though that toponymic material could not be included for reasons of space, it has contributed, along with the material from the six parishes covered in the gazetteers below, to the second main aspect of the thesis, the discussion of lordship and land organisation in Part Two. In Part Two will also be found an introduction to the earldom of Strathearn and a discussion of a number of aspects of its history, as well as appendices giving additional information relevant to the topics discussed in the body of the thesis. The parish unit was chosen as the basis for the organisation of this thesis since John Rogers (Rogers 1992, esp. 125-7) has shown the fundamental link between the form of the ecclesiastical parishes, whose creation was complete by 12c, and pre-existing units of land usually referred to as multiple estates, a multiple estate being a group of individual estates, not necessarily contiguous, organised and operated as a coherent social, tenurial and economic unit. As Rogers puts it, multiple estates were essentially units of lordship, taking the form of a principal settlement or caput with a number of dependent settlements. They contained within their bounds all the resources required to support their economies and to produce the necessary renders. Accordingly they were arranged in the landscape to exploit those resources, a process which often produced irregular geographical forms, including areas detached from the main body of the estate. This process frequently led to a specialisation of function, such as the management of pasture, amongst the component settlements. Jones (1976) discusses the multiple estate in the context of the early British Isles, Dodgshon (1981, esp. 58ff) in a Scottish context. The latter writer says (op. cit., 58) that in their variety of scale, multiple estates have often been likened to a parish, though some were undoubtedly larger, adding that lordship was exercised over them by a tribal chief, a king or a feudal baron. Many of these characteristics will be found relevant to the discussion of land organisation and lordship in Part Two. In our present state of knowledge, then, the medieval parishes are the best representation we have of the patterns of land organisation in Strathearn as they may have been in the time of the late Pictish and early Scottish kingdoms. A practical demonstration of the relevance of parish boundaries lies in the fact that it is rare indeed to find a settlement place-name whose area of reference straddles the boundary of a medieval parish. It is overwhelmingly within the context of the original parish that the place-names of an area have coherence and are most likely to give up their secrets.

Cette thèse propose une étude sur l'histoire du culte élisabéthain et son évolution en Slovaquie médiévale entre le XIIIe et le XVIe siècle. Elle s'appuie sur un corpus de 61 représentations visuelles, croisé avec les textes hagiographiques, liturgiques et littéraires, et replacé dans son contexte historique et spatial.Le culte de sainte Élisabeth a été un des plus répandus à travers l'Europe du bas Moyen Âge. Porté par la nouvelle sainteté mendiante, l'exemple d'Élisabeth a trouvé un écho puissant dans son pays d'origine, la Hongrie, immédiatement après sa canonisation en 1235. Plusieurs facteurs contribuèrent à la diffusion de la vénération de cette figure féminine : les familles royales, à commencer par celle des Árpád jusqu'au roi Mathias Corvin ; les mendiants ; et, enfin, les colons allemands. Une première partie de la thèse délimite l'espace géographique du thème étudié et présente les sources iconographiques et hagiographiques élisabéthaines qui constituent la base à partir de laquelle se déploie les grandes caractéristiques du culte. Elle recense d'une part les documents d'ordre juridique et biographique sur sainte Élisabeth, puis place sa personne dans la pratique liturgique à partir des manuscrits conservés en Slovaquie. D'autre part, elle présente l'image de la sainte, qui apparait sur des supports variés, grâce à un corpus iconographique inédit.Dans la deuxième partie, Élisabeth est replacée dans les contextes historiques hongrois et slovaque pour définir les premières formes de l'établissement de son culte. L'étude de la topographie témoigne de l'abondance des lieux dédiés à la sainte dans les décennies suivant sa mort.La troisième partie expose les divers motifs et scènes iconographiques de sainte Élisabeth telles qu'elles ont été pratiquées en Slovaquie et les croisent avec les modèles d'autres pays d'Europe. Les images élisabéthaines, auxquelles les fidèles s'identifient aisément, sont soumises à l'analyse pour démontrer leur plasticité au sein de la société médiévale où différents groupes sociopolitiques peuvent se les approprier selon ses propres besoins spirituels. Cette analyse située à la croisée de deux disciplines : l'histoire et l'histoire de l'art, apporte un regard nouveau sur les variations du culte d'une sainte à travers un rassemblement inédit de ses représentations du XIIIe au XVIe siècle. / This thesis deals with the history of the Elizabethan cult and its evolution in Medieval Slovakia between the 13th and the 16th centuries. It is based on a corpus of 61 visual representations crosschecked against hagiographic, liturgical and literary texts and put in its historical and spatial context. The cult of Saint Elizabeth is one of the most widespread throughout Europe in the Late Middle Ages. Backed by the new begging holiness, the example of Elizabeth finds an echo in Hungary, her country of origin, immediately after her canonization in 1235, where many factors contribute to the spread of the reverence for this feminine figure: royal families, starting with that of the Árpáds and ending by King Matthias Corvinus; beggars; and finally German settlers. The first part of the thesis defines the geographical space of the topic under consideration and determines Elizabethan iconographic and hagiographic sources which constitute the base for the problem of cult. On the one hand, this part identifies legal and biographical documents on Saint Elizabeth and analyses liturgical practices in connection with this figure on the basis of the manuscripts conserved in Slovakia. On the other hand, it presents the image of the saint with the help of an original iconographic corpus. The second part focuses on Elizabeth in the Hungarian and Slovak historical contexts in order to define the earliest forms of the establishment of her cult. Informed by historical topography, it shows the abundance of places dedicated to the saint in the decades following her death. The third part sets out different motifs and iconographic scenes of Saint Elizabeth in Slovakia and discusses them in comparison with other models in Europe. The images of Saint Elizabeth, with which the faithful identify themselves easily, are analyzed to demonstrate their plasticity in the medieval society which appropriates them according to its own demands. This analysis, placed at the crossroads of two subjects: history and history of art, provides a new approach to cult variations of the saint through the original grouping of representations from the 13th till the 16th centuries.